Wheat: The Cereal Killer…of Weight Loss, a Quick Read

Wheat is sneaky bad for us and if you think you’re eating well but you’re still having trouble losing weight or having unexplained health problems, it’s very possibly because of too much wheat or maybe you live under power lines or something.  Here’s why.

But Dr Jimmy, wheat is high in fiber, low in calories, part of a balanced breakfast, and forms the base of the food pyramid.   That’s just what they want you to believe.  Two pieces of whole wheat bread will raise your blood sugar more than a Snickers bar.  Nothing else that is considered “healthful” does that.  Dr. Davis (cardiologist and author of Wheat Belly) calls wheat the perfect obesogenic food because wheat keeps us hungry and our blood glucose levels high, which leads to storing fat.

Our tax dollars are fueling the obesity epidemic.  The reason wheat was the base of the food pyramid circa 1990, has more to do with politics than it does with science.   Wheat makes food manufacturers rich because government subsidies (that were implemented when we worried about food scarcity) make wheat incredibly cheap.  Furthermore, public perception of wheat is still good (thanks to food industry lobby propaganda like the food pyramid and myplate.gov), so wheat can still be sold as a “health food”.  Narrator, “It is not a health food.”

Wheat has changed, see the picture below (old school wheat is on the left, while the modern wheat is on the right.)  The new stuff has  more chromosomes, processing, and refining causing modern grain to have  an undesirable inflammatory and pro-insulin response leading to weight gain, diabetes, and other chronic health problems.  Modern wheat is a completely different food.

But Dr. Jimmy, why didn’t anyone have problems with wheat 20 or 30 years ago, it was still modified and we used pesticides back then, I think the wheat sensitivity is made up…Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide has been used for decades, but previously it was sprayed on young wheat that was still in the field and most of it washed off before harvest.  Since 2006, massive quantities of Roundup are added to the harvested wheat because it helps dry the grains and resist spoilage.  This is a big fucking deal.  Now huge amounts of pesticides are added directly to our food and it doesn’t get washed off.  Not coincidentally, since 2006, we’ve seen an epidemic of wheat (gluten) sensitivity.  European farmers don’t do this and when I was living overseas, I could tolerate wheat products, but even a little American wheat causes me to have all sorts of skin, digestive, and emotional problems.  My night screaming is worse than ever.

In my opinion, bread is the worst of all the wheat products because it feels like you’re eating a good thing.  Narrator, “It is not a good thing.”  But Dr Jimmy, our grandparents ate bread, and so did their grandparents, so what’s not to like?  I’ll tell you.  Your grandparents’ bread used old school wheat and the bread had like three ingredients and I can pronounce them all.  Today’s bread ingredients read like a spelling bee in hell.

Also, traditional bread was left to rise with long acting yeast overnight, allowing time for the yeast to eat more of the wheat’s glucose, thus lowering the carb count and making the bread a legitimate fermented food.  American breadmakers use fast rising yeast that work quickly but the limited rising time only allows the yeast to eat a tiny portion of the carbohydrates (glucose), the rest of which goes right into our blood stream, causing more diabetes and obesity.  Then we add sugar to our bread…

Nature’s Own Whole Wheat is America’s best-selling bread.  They claim to be all natural, without preservatives etc, but it has 14 ingredients and added sugar.  Nature’s Own doesn’t consider sugar a preservative, but it is.  It’s not added for its sweet flavor but so the bread will retain moisture and squishiness.  Many other brands use high fructose corn syrup, which is even worse.  American bread has so much sugar, it is considered cake, by European standards.

But Dr Jimmy, Nature’s Own is “fortified” with vitamins and minerals.  Yes, but all that fortification adds up to less than the total amount of pesticides it contains, which goes unmentioned on the label.  Also, if the grain was truly a whole grain and not so heavily refined, it wouldn’t need to be fortified.  Like all processed foods, modern grain is stripped of its nutritional value to improve shelf stability and then some artificial nutrients are sprinkled back in, which are boasted about on the label.  This is like a prostitute bragging about getting cured of his syphilis.    

In conclusion, if you are the perfect weight, with flawless skin, never cry in the shower, and don’t have any other health problems, then maybe wheat is OK for you, but for the rest of us, the less we eat, the better off we will be.